HOTS update 36 hours:
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halfway thru the second day and things are taking all sorts of twists and turns.
there cant be any bigger news than bob hearn’s morristown mistake.
5 miles past morristown it suddenly dawned on him;
"oh crap. i was supposed to run the elevated sidewalks!"
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and so came the thing every runner hates most.
back over the 5 miles he had just run,
do the missed section
and then 5 miles to return over ground he had run twice already!
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it was not enough to erase his lead
he is still 14 miles ahead of john clarke.
but that extra 10 miles has to have taken a toll.
and he is still over 200 miles from the finish.
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meanwhile kyle kalbus had hit a wall during the day.
dizzy and disoriented he took refuge in a dollar general and called for pickup.
was it bad luck that he caught the race staff rotated away from his position?
you tell me.
informed he was at least 4 hours from pickup
kyle decided to walk to greenville and get some sleep.
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at 36 hours he was already at afton and still moving.
he dropped out of contention
but his race moves on.
was this one break enough to save it?
only time will tell.
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most everyone in the field will face more than one moment of truth in the days to come.
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other things that are happening…
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the big teams are starting to unravel
people find themselves at different places.
everyone’s multiday has its ups and its downs.
it takes a lot of luck for them to coincide.
no one can afford to run the wrong pace to stay with someone else.
so the groups and pairs are starting to break apart.
in the days to come new teams will form…
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and break apart in their turn.
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many of the runners had the good fortune to run through a classic car show at the bristol motor speedway.
if they liked old cars it was a treat.
if they didnt it was just extra traffic.
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others are hitting jonesborough just in time for "music on the square"
winding their way through the crowd that filled the streets where the course goes thru.
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everybody had to cross the long swinging bridge across the holston at bluff city.
it was just a fun break in the course…
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for those who think swinging bridges are fun.
for others it was a white knuckler.
but the ones who would normally never cross a swinging bridge
gritted their teeth and got it done.
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far behind the leaders diane taylor and nicole dernier are only 1 mile in front of the grim reaper.
they enter the night with their races hanging in the balance.
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so off into the second night the 80 go on.
80 runners with 80 stories.
it will be interesting to see who is left when the sun comes up for the third time.
Categories: HOTS